also include the 1999 “ecological footprint” to account for overall environmental
degradation (logged, WWF 2002). Although the footprint measure is not time-varying, it
is one of the more well-regarded measures of overall environmental damage available for
a large number of countries (York et al. 2003).
Analysis
We first begin with some descriptive evidence regarding the formation of
domestic pro-environmental NGOs over time. The conventional grassroots story begins
with the implicit assumption that domestic mobilization is the primary vector of social
change. Scholars have looked to the student movements, post-war democratic climate,
and the emergence of a liberal, highly-educated middle class for the domestic wellsprings
of modern environmentalism in the United States and Western Europe (Dalton 1993,
1994; Rome 2003). In the developing world, in contrast, domestic associations were rare
until the late 1970s and early 1980s, and they appear in smaller numbers than in the
industrialized Western nations. The origins of these associations remain overlooked and
weakly theorized, as do their differences in tactics and agendas. Do environmental
organizations in the developing world follow the same path of those in the United States
and Western Europe, or are their origins indeed different?
--- Figures 2 and 3 ---
Figures 2 and 3 trace the growth of memberships in environmental INGOs and the
founding of domestic associations in developed and developing countries. We also
Convention